If you don't eat here we both starve

I noticed today that one of my neighborhood restaurants (Vinny T's) has the above slogan on its signage. I have no idea how long it has been there, but I don't remember noticing it before.

I find myself turning this over and over again with my fledgling business skills. On the one hand I want to make faces at it; it feels desperate or maybe like a passive aggressive adult figure. Maybe that last is intentional to allude to stereotypes of Italian maternal figures? On the other hand, it has a call to think local and in neighborly solidarity.

I have continued to think about it, so at least in that respect it is successful. Maybe for a low resource, small business a nuanced layered tag-line is ideal in that respect.

What are your thoughts?